BCB won’t rush coach hunt

Bangladesh cricket authorities said on Saturday they were in no hurry to appoint the new coach of national cricket team despite the resignation of former Sri Lankan opener Chandika Hathurusinghe.The BCB confirmed earlier this week that Hathurusinghe sent a letter in October expressing his wish to resign, though he did not give any specific reason.The BCB was yet to accept his resignation but speculations were ripe about his successor.‘Our chief executive officer spoke to him [Hathurusinghe] but there was no discussion about his joining back,’ BCB media committee chairman Jalal Yunus told reporters in Mirpur.‘If a decision was made [regarding his resignation] in the meantime we would start looking for new coach. But there is no hurry. We will take one or two months,’ he said. ‘We will take a coach who can adapt to Bangladesh team. It would be even better if he was familiar with the culture of sub-continent,’ said Jalal.The decision about new coach was also discussed in a meeting of BCB president Nazmul Hasan and members of the technical committee on Saturday.Nazmul invited the committee members to take their opinion on different issues after his re-election as BCB president, informed former national skipper Shafiqul Haque.‘It was mostly a courtesy call,’ said Haque. ‘We discussed some routine matters. The coach issue was also there. But there was no detailed discussion about it as the Board was yet to make a decision regarding coach’s resignation. Once the BCB make its decision we can talk about the potential successor,’ he said.National players were also reluctant to talk about the possible successor of Hathurusinghe.‘We are just hearing those things and it is difficult to make any comment at this stage,’ said national one-day international skipper Mashrafee bin Murtaza.‘We heard that he had resigned and we also heard that Board would talk to him regarding this matter. So it’s very difficult to make any comment [about the next coach].’Mashrafee admitted he was surprised by the resignation of the coach.‘I was in South Africa for two weeks and we had no discussion regarding this matter,’ he said. ‘We were trying to win a match at that time, so we talked to him in this matter. There were no signs of his resignation in our discussions and we talked only positive things about the matches with him,’ he said.Batsman Mominul Haque, who became the first Bangladeshi player to score a half-century in the ongoing Bangladesh Premier League, also preferred to stay silent on the issue.‘I’m still unsure about the matter and I think Board will decide whether he will stay or not. I don’t want to give any reaction to this,’ said Mominul, who struggled with his career during Hathurusinghe’s three-and-half year stay in Bangladesh.